Vancouver based indie rock band Yukon Blonde made a triumphant return to Lethbridge  to play a busy  Average Joes on  Thursday night, Feb. 11.
 Long before they began, they had a lot of their fans, mostly, young female fans, clustered  in front of the stage eagerly anticipating the band’s first visit to Lethbridge in many years.
 I thought they would focus on their new, keyboard heavy CD “On Blonde,”  but  only played the singles “Saturday Night” and “ I Wanna Be Your Man.”

 They sound like a lot of indie rock bands coming out of  Vancouver with plenty of delay laden guitars and a overall soothing sound.
 But they brought something a little extra — tight songwriting with catchy guitars, a touch of alt country along the lines of the Jayhawks and stunning multi-part (four or five part sometimes) vocal harmonies which reminded me of Sloan.
 They played songs from all their CD  form the very early like “Wind Blows” to the brand new, like the latest singles.
 They had the audience singing along a lot.

“Wind Blows ” was  a highlight as was “Fire” from their 2011 EP “Fire/Water” for which frontman Jeffrey Innes did double duty on keyboards and guitar. Rebecca Gray played most of the keyboards in the set, but they took a backseat to tight songcraft and the chiming guitars.
Innes’ keyboards took centre stage for the new singles.

“All right, now let’s play a rock show,” he quipped after playing “Saturday Night.”
He was good as his word as he launched into “ Radio,” from their 2012 CD “Tiger Talk”  which had the audience singing along. He told a story about playing Lethbridge last time and having to relocate the show to a house concert due to a downpour.
Lead guitarist Brandon Scott sang a couple of songs and sang harmony as he thrashed around.

Bassist James Younger  told a story about being kicked out of Progress Clothing for “making fun ” of the clothes when he just wanting to buy some, and laughed he was welcomed back earlier in the day as a customer. That drew rousing cheers from the crowd.

Innes noted they had one last song, their latest single “ I Wanna Be Your Man,” which had a lot of folks singing along. That lead to a handful of more songs including a couple David Bowie hits “Let’s Dance,” and my favourite Bowie rocker “Suffragette City,” which ended the show.

Opening act On an On played a plodding set of mellow, ambient indie rock that sounded like Radiohead and Coldplay spending the winter in On an On’s home of Minneapolis.

 There was some pretty cool dissonant bass chords and effects, chill vocals, lots of keyboards. Frontman/ guitarist Ryne Estwing and bassist Nate Eisland took turns singing falsetto. Keyboardist  Alissa Ricci crouched down for a drink and to tinker with an assortment of effects units attached to her keyboards. They picked up  the pace in places as the crowd politely applauded, stronger each time.
They were tight and good at their style of music, unfortunately they were putting me to sleep a little.